| QUOTE (Iamandi @ Jan 13 2005, 07:59 AM) |
| Banking system og Switzerland can provide a lot of value to 3rd Reich pockets. Iama |
That banking system was even more useful for The Third Reich the way it was, in a neutral Switzerland. The high rank Germans created countless secret accounts for various purposes in the Swiss banks. These accounts were so valuable, that the Americans threatened Switzerland with invasion, after 1945, if the Swiss were not going to handle to them the amounts of the best known German accounts.
No returning to the basic question of the topic...
Germany waged that war for resources. Mostly for food (resulting in the wish to grab agricultural land), for space to allow the settle of German colonists, and for mineral resources.
Switzerland had nothing of these. They had, however, a quite good high tech industry, but that industry run at full power for the needs of The Third Reich.
Until the end of 1944, all the countries around Switzerland were under the full control of the Axis, so strategically Switzerland was not important.
The landscape, mentioned by tjk, was also an important factor, but not essential. There was a plan to invade Switzerland by Germany, but that remained on paper.
All I wrote here is quite well known.
Less known (but please do not start new topics!) is the fact that actually the German leadership, including Hitler, did not want to invade Holland in 1940, but the high brass of Luftwaffe considered Holland very good to have airfields against Great Britain. That because even the Germans were not so sure that France will fall so quickly and the French coast will become available so soon.
Also little known is the fact the invasion of Norway was a race against clock between Germany and the Allies (United Kingdom and France). The Allies made their own plans for the invasion of Norway, and they were about to start it one week after the invasion as we know it was started by the Germans. So, because it was done by the Germans, it was imperialistic etc. etc. etc. I am wandering how we would learn it at history in the public schools if Norway would be invaded by England and France. Of course, justified blah blah blah.
The main reason: the iron ore obtained in Sweden, and sold almost completely to Germany. So the Germans wanted to secure it, and the Allied wanted to cut the flow.